Staplers and hole-punch
Paper, signatures, and stamps
Busy, busy work
Audit error, office closed
Oncoming apocalypse

---

“If you are viewing this instructional video, you may be having some glitches with your audit processes. Don’t panic. From time to time, any bureaucracy worth its hole-punch will need to conduct an audit.

Daily dandy-desk-documented fun
Standard sunny-systematised-stapled hijinks

However, sometimes, there is a clerical error, or worse, a process deviation. If this occurs during an ordinary, 8:45am-5:20pm workday, the standard review process can be implemented, commencing on the same day, should the error be detected before 12pm, and if later than 12pm, commencing on the next working day. The typical review timelines can then follow, ideally 3-5 business days for information gathering, followed by committee consideration dependent on the 6-weekly cycle and agenda length.

Expected. Thorough. Busy. Reassuring.
All systems nominal.
Stamping and signing rates above baseline.
Working hard, at a sensible, sustainable pace. Amiright?

Unfortunately, occasionally,
something cataclysmic happens
bottom right on the risk matrix
(likelihood=E (rare) x consequence=5 (catastrophic))

Hold onto your staplers…
A fault occurs during the audit.
An audit error in the error audit.
This results in the dreaded, circular,
Paper Ouroboros Paradox.  
At this point, the
perfectly procedured
copybook committeed
faultlessly filed
bureaucracy
will implode.

The only way of avoiding POP is
a concurrent process to audit the
audit, we call this The Meta Audit.  
The bookish amongst you may want to say
that would increase the circularity
(moving POP from likelihood=E, to D!)
Don’t worry, we run the Meta Meta
Audit to make sure that never happens.

Our favourite galactic bureaucrat avatars, the Vogons, were the first race to encounter the pure, paper-curling hell of TMA. That is why these instructions are written in poetry, of sorts. But not Vogon-authored poetry, of course, even though
the quality
and honestly
the policy
of the potential use
of these directions
or sections
or connections
for torture
Have never been directly investigated.

The KPI for TMA is known as the
Kafka-Cockroach Distance
measured in imaginary cockroach lengths (icL).

Under potential conditions of
POP, the TMA KPI KCD starts at
42 icL
     and counts down with
     every fatal meta error:
       -Information presented to audit
         committee in triplicate
         instead of quadruplicate,
41 icL
      -Audit presentation containing
        27 slides instead of 26,
        as clearly outlined,
40 icL
     -Email about colonoscopy sent
       to audit address list instead of mum,
39 icL
     And so on.

You’ll know when you reach 17 icL,
You’ll see the cockroaches.
Conveniently, this makes measurement simpler

Now you know how to calculate your Kafka-Cockroach Distance, you can audit your audits with perfect assurance and insurance.

---

This bureaucracy
Kafkaesque catastrophe
Dear Douglas Adams
Thanks for giving me words for
Processing my processes

Years of being ignored, seen as a no one
As I watch you and your friends always have fun

Why must you get all the spotlight?
Why must I still give more, even with all my might?

Constant yelling is all I’ve heard
Being seen with me in public is absurd

I’m always discarded, just an outcast
Now, all those times will be my last

She saw me as human, didn’t ignore me
Now, how long till you also see?

I want to share that spotlight with you
If only you allow me to

I also deserve the friends you’ve bonded with
I won’t make this just a myth

Does this mean I’m a bad person?
Does this mean my jealousy has worsened?

Now you and your band begin to sing
But I’ll no longer be watching from the wing

We spent at least 15 minutes in the parking lot,
Everyday.
Itching in the grass and making up arguments.
Waiting for my mom to pick me up from your house after school,
Spraying mist out the water hose at each other and into the sky.
Overinvested in card games and extra-murals.
Got locked out of your club penguin account.
I lied to my mom about the pickup time,
So we could play pool a bit longer.
All that nothing might have been everything.
Wait for the bus with me sometime again.

My mind is often like a large space of odd thoughts scattered memories pure confusion.

What am I supposed to do with all
Of this
Unhinged
Passion —
Okay, calling it passion is a stretch.
It’s boiling ******* anger
For my own existence.

What am I to do?
Share it? With whom?
Who might appreciate?
Even if they do,
I’d probably be dissatisfied
About something.
I’m sure of it.

Why am I so
Existentially dissatisfied?
At what point will I think
Anything is enough,
Or worthy of my
Approval?

Does it need to destroy me in order for me to respect it?

I’m making myself sound like a *****.
Really, I am
But a self aware one.
Like, I realize that I’m a pretentious *******
And I hate myself for it,
So that you don’t have to.

Why do I long for attention,
When I am so
Disgusted
By it

Just pathetic,
It’s like I think
the window which I’m looking out of
Makes me better
Than those who have a different view.

Sometimes I wish I was stupid so that I wouldn’t think I was better than other people.
Or at least stupid enough
To ignore my own hypocrisy.
Why the ****
does it always come back to
That story about
The flowers for that dead ******* rat

Is it too late to get a lobotomy?

after an oil spill mowed the lawn
for eleven an hour,
tiny migrants crowded the greenhouse gate.
the bug ****** moonwater muddied
the steps of the tenderhearted
community (of seed undertakers),
and made its way by means of caked rubber
into the cytophotocycle,
where the moonwater volatilized.
liquid volery.
vivid luck.
awoken like post-dream nap perspirants -
oneiroceiving precipitate;
the greenhouse grew murals in condensation,
the accidents si quieros.
a misty opacity attrited
like deskinning a spider,
with a definitude of exo scaling tons;
memories shed,
shies misled.

        ⌂ the greenhouse stands where a glacier once
        slipped, clumsy as steadfast could be.
        foreign fruit fits inside it.
        it knows not what it grows.

        🌢 the moonwater was salt-lipped for a while.
        where it passed through, it was soiled.



you’d be surprised how many things hit glass.
the moonwater didn’t realize what volume
seizes space
until it heard its kind on the outside. from the inside.
Venus has a reassuring kiss when a drone is dampened.
there were three rows for puddling;
one for naps,
one for not naps,
and one for knotted gnats laying hot eggs
in lustrated bloom.
flume frustrated.
somewhere far up the chain, a worn-out manager
ordered inventory off-brand,
and enchanted a horticultural hobbyist.
the devil is ennui and god is curiosity.

        ⌂ there could be a greenhouse next door, but
        it would be an accident, a leaky shed
        with errant sprouts.
        as it would seem to my lustrous heart.
        lagging and callous.

       🌢 the moon was uninterrupted that night.
        mighty sky drifters never passed between them.
        like a parent with patience or a friend with faith.
        like a husk that stole your pose.



the maceration was mutual with leaky infusions
of purpose and imagination
materializing into groundskeepers
that tamed the pressure of an ever encroaching periphery.
one time the moonwater nearly fumed its way dry
after a political candidate entered the greenhouse
with scissors promising bonsai.
but pesticides pass by.
and pictures of fabric mean less than bird song
or beetle guides.
for the frame never mattered to the moonwater.
no more than a furnace in winter,
than a flower in summer.

        ⌂ when it comes time for the greenhouse to deracinate,
        to throw her vines like limbs over garden walls
        and access roads, eye to eye with cumulus
        monoliths; her moonwater sweat will slip
        through the glass glue and slide down to
        her fingers . . . to feel what she feels

        🌢 i love pooling here
        🌢 i love steaming and raining here
        🌢 i will love being the halo in your refraction